Love for people, different society made Thurmond renowned

A black ribbon and flowers decorate the base of the statue of Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds Friday. He was 100 and the longest-serving senator in history. AP

COLUMBIA -- It has been one of the most free-flowing of all tributes to Strom Thurmond in the days following his death: "There will never be anyone again like Ol' Strom."

The man who took over Thurmond's Senate seat says it's because he was the best of a great generation. A biographer suggests simpler times gave the 100-year-old ex-governor and former senator time and room to change from a broiling segregationist to a beloved grandfather figure.

The friend helping to plan Thurmond's funeral thinks he was simply one of the most noble men to ever serve the public. And a man who drove 140 miles with his wife to pay his respects said Thurmond just loved South Carolina and its people.

Whatever the reason, Thurmond's legacy didn't just resonate in South Carolina, where nearly every paper carried their own local version of how the former senator touched people's lives through decades of public service.

Instead, it reverberated throughout the country, where a politician who chose the wrong side on civil rights survived and grew, commanding pages in history books instead of a footnote alongside others who shared his states' rights views, said Nadine Cohodas, author of "Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern Change."

"He lived long enough to have several different incarnations of himself in terms of how people looked at all he went through," Cohodas said Saturday.

Thurmond's capacity to change ended up making South Carolina a better place, said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, elected in November to replace the retiring Thurmond.

"Every story, every headline talks about his segregationist campaign because it's titillating, but it's not fair to freeze Senator Thurmond in time," said Graham, R-S.C.

Thurmond's decisions to hire black staffers or support black nominees for federal judgeships allowed South Carolina politicians to do the same at the state level because "if Strom Thurmond did it, it provided political cover," Graham said.

"Senator Thurmond could have held on to the rhetoric of the past. He could have continued to be a barrier, and quite frankly, he could have won no matter what he did because he was so established," Graham said. "But he chose, this time in more subtle ways, to allow change to occur."

Cohodas said Thurmond's most impressive trait was his ability to survive politically when so many states' rights colleagues faded and the civil rights movement grew. The biographer said Thurmond was helped because a simpler time without instant communication gave him more time to change his public image.

Otherwise, Thurmond's obituary would have been a few paragraphs inside major national papers -- not front-page news, she said.

"It's because we have had these last 25, 30 years that make him so fascinating," Cohodas said.

Unlike some politicians, Thurmond didn't use patronage or pork to stay in power. Instead, he changed with the times and made sure people knew he was on their side, Cohodas said.

"As one of his former aides said so astutely, 'There is no Strom Thurmond machine,"' she said.

Thurmond's strongest legacy may be constituent service. From helping a Greenville man who fought in World War II get into a veterans' hospital to remembering the name of the police officer who helped with security at a festival in Beaufort, newspapers across South Carolina on Saturday were filled with stories about how the former statesman loved people.

"It was like food to him," Cohodas said. "When he shook your hand, he absorbed information about individuals, about the state, just like a sponge. It became a part of him. That is how he saw his job."

That's why Tim Grant and his wife drove from Seneca to Columbia on Saturday to put flowers on the base of a statue of Thurmond on the Statehouse grounds.

"For good or bad, he did what he thought was best for the people of South Carolina," Grant said. "He loved this state, and he loved its people."

But epic stories of his service and even Thurmond's record 48 years in the U.S. Senate aren't enough to explain why he was unique, said state Sen. John Courson, who is helping the family plan Thurmond's funeral, set for 1 p.m. Tuesday.

"I think the people who have been involved with him absolutely revered him," said Courson, R-Columbia. "He led a lot of us into public service because he did it with such majesty and nobility."

Courson and Graham, friends of Thurmond for years, say nearly everyone close to Thurmond called him "Senator" or "Senator Thurmond" because it was the ultimate sign of respect.

But Thurmond never wanted to have a kind of high-and-mighty air with the public, Graham said.

"The thing I like most about Senator Thurmond, he had a common touch," Graham said. "People respected the fact he was the senator, but they still called him 'Strom."'

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